


With my heart upon my sleeve

by Little_Firestar84



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-26 00:14:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1667672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Firestar84/pseuds/Little_Firestar84
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which  Lisbon and Jane leave the TSA holding cell and talk about when they fell for each other, Cho informs Van Pelt he owns her money, and marcus Pike discovers she'll never text him her flight information...</p>
            </blockquote>





	With my heart upon my sleeve

**Author's Note:**

> There are a couple of things I felt like doing after the finale we got; this is one of them. I'll probably get back sooner or later - probably not sooner than a week - and do something a little... ehm... with more spice with out CANON couple, because, duh, they are canon, and we've wanted them to be canon for so long. Also, waiting till January 2015 to see the two of them together? I gotta do something to pass the time. Ergo... this, first, with sweetness and love and fluff and also a mention of Pike (nothing too nice, I swear. Because I can't be too nice with a guy who fist-pump in the air and scream YES! when his girlfriend agrees to marry him over the phone- honey, you didn't win a fight or a bet. But there's more to it here...)and old team and new team. Also: in case it escaped your attention (and no one said anything until now), Jane's still unseen big boss, aka the chief agent, is a certain Mrs. Shultz. Is this the same Mrs. Shultz that had been chief agent of the Sacramento office in season 5? hard to say... but I like to think that she was, and after the whole Red John debacle had been sent to Austin and decided to take Jane in her own hands and transform him in her own machine to close cases...

Abbott managed, somehow, to clear things up with TSA; Jane didn’t bother to ask how, and Lisbon was too ashamed that Abbott had found the two off them looking at each other like love-sick teenagers. That was one of the things that Lisbon had never really liked about herself: she always felt the need to look less feminine, less a woman. Here at the FBI this tendency of hers had somehow lessened, but every now and then it showed its ugly head back. Abbott hadn’t given them an explanation, either; he had looked at the duo like a stern parent, telling them that their flight was going to leave at eight am on the following day- there was still a lot clean-up to do, after Jane’s plan had somehow worked despite the odds, but they guessed that, once back in Austin, Director Shultz would have been asking for the consultant’s head. Yes, the woman had always appreciated him, had tried her best in the years to get her hands on him, and at the end she had been victorious in doing so, but Alexa Shultz wasn’t well-known for her patience, and enough could be enough. But right now they weren’t going to get worried about this: there was going to be time when they would be facing her.

So, they simply took a taxy back to the Blue Bird Inn; Jane’s room was now a crime-scene, but Lisbon had been in such an haste the night before to leave that she hadn’t bothered to check out, preferring to leave the trouble to Jane. But he hadn’t done anything, preferring to catch a killer and then run to get her before it was too late. 

Not to stop her. But because he wanted to be honest, tell her the truth. It was something he had done both for him and for her, because admitting his feeling out loud had been his way of giving her a chance; he wasn’t controlling her, but given her the chance of choosing what she wanted out of life. Yes, she had previously accepted to follow Marcus, but because it had been the only option. Marcus _wanted_ her, while Jane hadn’t showed any sign of being interested in more than working together and being friends. Yes, he had been acting a bit… weird after she had started dating, but how could she know he wasn’t behaving like a child, whose old toy got taken by another kid, if he didn’t say the words?

And yet… yet, at the end he had said those words. More than once. Saying again and again that it was the truth. That it scared him. But that it made him happy that she knew, that they both did. He hadn’t acted like a guy who had won a bet or a game like Marcus often did when she was involved: he had been… it was like he was the same man, and yet a whole completely different one.

And how could she say no to him, when he was offering her on a silver platter the life she had craved for the last five years?

They hadn’t bothered with lunch or breakfast, but had simply gone into her room, dropping their things on the floor careless, falling in bed, still fully clothed, and fell asleep that way, cuddling together, like they had dreamt of for so long.

* * *

“This is creepy.” She told him in his chest, smiling against his sun-kissed skin, as soon as she started to stir at his side. Her semi-open eyes went to the huge clock hanged in front of the bed, and she noticed that they had slept- or at least, she had- for a good part of the afternoon, too; it was almost dinner time, and she smiled, thinking about the dresses still in the wardrobe: as much as she had liked seeing Jane answering to the coral number, she wasn’t going to wear it twice in a row; the white one was a little bit informal, more apt for the seaside and a nice walk, so it was the time for the lace green one. Green. Like many things he had given her along the years. Like the colour of clothing he said that empathized her eyes. Just like the white one made perfect contrast with her dark hair, and the coral one went along with her fair skin.

“Ehy.” He said, simply looking at her, probably called by her own inner musing. Teresa felt tears in her eyes as their gazes met; she could still see the torment and the fear that it was all in his mind, that it was just a dream. Or that maybe she would decide to marry Pike anyway and get to DC once bored of him. Smiling, she shook her head, and kissed him, the same kind of kiss that he had given her earlier.

The contact seemed to calm him down enough, reassuring him that she was indeed real and there. With Teresa still on his chest, Jane leaned in bed on his back, careful of his injury, and hummed between himself, content, while Teresa drawn invisible patterns on his skin- during their slumber, between her heat and the Miami natural one he had gotten rid of jacket and shirt. 

Absent-mildly, he started to play with his wedding ring, but despite the familiar physical weight, he felt nothing. Gone was the fear, the anguish and the guilt that had showed their ugly faces in the past, every time he had allowed himself to get close to a woman. He looked down at Teresa, and wondered why he wasn’t feeling as usual: was he healed? Had he fell guilty not only because of Red John and his late family, but because, deep down, there had always been a part of him who longed for her presence in his life, to have her as his own?

“Jane, can I ask you something?” she asked him, still playing with his naked body; they had done nothing at all, it had all been very innocent; Teresa herself was still fully clothed, and he had simply gotten rid of his shirt because it was really way too warm. He hummed in response, and she read it as a yes. “How long has it been since…” she moved her eyes emphatically between them, showing him what she meat, and he laughed, inspired by her innocence and her spirit. “How long have you been in love with me?”

He took his sweet time to answer, but staring at him Lisbon knew he wasn’t planning to con her or anything; it was strange, maybe even a little miracle, but somehow, after he had bared his soul to her on the plane, she had seen him, and had understood what it meant to read him. Jane wasn’t buying time to answer because he was looking for something spectacular or anything like that; she guessed he didn’t even have a proper answer himself.

“I’ve always loved you, but… in different ways. At first, you were a person I had to spent time with, and as much of a bastard I was to use you all, I’ve always been good at recognizing a good person, and you, my dear.” He said, smiling and kissing the skin of her neck. “You’ve always been good to me. You were a friend, then my best friend. And then…” he paused, sighinga little, burying his head in his pillow as to mask his voice, a bit ashamed of his confession. “And then I was right before you, ready to stage your death at my own hands in the hope of finally catching Red John. And I said it, even if I didn’t know it myself until that moment.”

She cupped his face, smiling, her eyes a bit teary. Jane erased her tears with his thumb, willing that from now on, the only tears he would cause on her sweet features would be of happiness; from now on, he would do his best to try to erase all he had done, all the pain and sufferance and tears he had caused her, starting from their huge fight the previous day. 

“I was scared. Because I didn’t know what I felt. And when I started to feel guilty, because what if I had been in love with you all along, since I met you, just few months after I lost my wife? But then I realized something.” He paused, and looking at her he took her hand in his own, squeezing it; he grimaced a bit in pain as he shifted position, going to lie on his side, his weight on his free arm, and she mimicked his posture, her free hand cupping his neck. ”I may have loved you all along, but… it had been gradual. First I loved you. And then, with time passing by, with us… me… changing…” he smiled of a bright smile, the same he had worn when she had told him she felt the same way about him too. “When I shot you, I knew that I had fallen in love with you, even if I didn’t know exactly when it had happened.”

They kept in silken, and Lisbon knew that Jane wasn’t going to push her; there was a lot, too much going on, and he wanted to give her time to process everything; few hours before she was on the verge of moving to the other side of the country for Pike, and now here she was, sharing a bed with him and ready to beg Abbott to take her back.

“Do you remember the video Erika Flynn made you do?” He nodded; yes, he remember it, like he remembered almost everything. He wondered where she was going to go, and if he had to go and break her heart; he had told her, he had always loved her, in different ways, but back then his words were meant for another –one who wasn’t there with him any longer, Angela. She probably saw the inner turmoil in him, because she shifted slightly, her grip on his hand stronger and stronger, and she lifted her face so that she was breathing his own air. 

“I know that you weren’t talking about me, but… later that year, when I met Greg… he told me that I was strong and at peace, and I wondered…” she paused, taking a big breath, smiling in the same way she had done when she had seen in Austin after two years apart. “I realized that I wanted to be that woman for you, the one you talked about.”

“You are sweet” he told her, reminiscing all the other times the same words had left his lips. “I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your chance at happy…”

But shaking her head she cut him short, kissing him on the lips; it wasn’t a simple peck like their first time, nor sensual, and yet caste, like the second one they had shared immediately afterwards; this one wasn’t even filled with promises: it was the foretaste of things, sweet things to come. She smiled against his lips, murmuring her next words against him.

“Just be glad that I’m a romantic at heart, otherwise I would have gone to marry Marcus instead of…” she opened wide her eyes as soon as the other man’s name escaped her mouth, and she froze, parting from her soon-to-be-lover, panic filling her whole being. 

“Oh my God.” She hadn’t bother to call him after she had left the plane to run to Jane, and the last time they had spoken she had told him that she was going to move to DC and… and… and marry _him._

After that awful proposal (done after having said _what the hell,_ like it was something he just have to do and get it done) and she had listening to him saying a fist-pumping _Yes!_ Like he had won something. 

And yet… yet, she had agreed to marry him, and told him she would be moving with him. The least she could do was giving him an explanation as why she wasn’t there yet, why she wasn’t going to join him nor now nor ever. And as much as she wanted the half-naked man at her side…

“I’m so sorry, Jane…” she said, pouting, like it was hurting more her than him refusing to have sex together. 

“That’s ok, I understand it. Besides, I told you; the fact that you are such a good person is why I love you.” She smiled, biting her inner check, and looked at him. Jane changed position too, sitting against the headboard, grunting every now and then when his feet hit something. “You better get used to it, dear, because I’m going to say it again for a long time to come.” For the rest of their life, if he could have a saying in it. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked. He knew it was something she needed to do on her own. Not because she wanted to keep things secret – God only knew if secretsbetween them hadn’t been nearly their undoing – but because she wanted to spare him the ugly things, the pain and the rage than would be soon filling the air.

“Nah, I’ll take a walk and call him. And meanwhile, I’ll order room service.” He pouted. She, too, had wanted to wear one of “his” dresses, but looking at Jane now she understood that it just wasn’t going to happen that night; he had been injured, the stairs would have been hell on his feet and they would have never been able to enjoy the dinner if he would have been in pain. “C’mon, don’t be mad. Besides, I remember you telling me you would have never seduced me over a meal.”

“Well, maybe not consciously, but no red-blooded man would say not to a meal with you in evening attire and then sex.”

She shook her head and, readjusting her clothes and taking her things, she kissed him sweetly. She wasn’t going to tell him that she wasn’t going to have sex with him just yet, as she didn’t feel to listen to Jane complaining. It wasn’t like she wanted to be wooed or wined and dined; she simply didn’t want to be in an hotel under the same roof as her boss. Call her old-fashioned, but is he was going to have sex- to make love- with the man of her life for the first time, she wanted for it to happen in a more romantic scenario. 

“See you later.” She told him, and gave him one last kiss, before leaving the room to a very content Jane.

* * *

As soon as she was downstairs, she spotted Cho on the couch at the reception; her former right hand seemed lost in his thoughts, but, strangely enough, he seemed… upset? She didn’t know how to explain it, but it was like someone had told him that the very thing he believed in was just a lie-really, he was wearing the same expression as Chris did when she had to confess him that Santa didn’t exist. _But, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t understand…_ her little brother had told her, and she thought that the same words could be on the tip of his tongue, too. Why, she wasn’t sure. 

_ Because I’m still here? Because I didn’t go to DC and stayed in Austin- to be with Jane?  _ She shook her head, berating herself. There was no way that Cho thought that, once sat his mind in motion, Jane wouldn’t get her back. Besides, he was one of the most perceptive people she had ever met, despite lacking in the communication (and often, expression) department. And he had been the first one of them to make it to the FBI- to be asked to join. He _had_ to know, right?

“Ehy, Cho.” She told him, with a little smile, standing in front of him. “So… heard the news? Apparently I’m not leaving any longer.”

“Yeah. I’d say congratulations, but I’m not sure it’s the case, given Jane track record.” She lifted her eyebrows, but at the end, it wasn’t like she didn’t agree; of course, her own track record wasn’t stellar- she had just left yet again another man to live in a state different from the one he lived in- but he was right. Jane’s track record with women was, in a word, terrible: either they were murderers and he dated them to prove his point, or they met an awful end. But she didn’t want to think about it:after all, that had been in the past, when Red John was looming on Jane’s back, studying his every move and acting accordingly. Now, Red John was gone, and they both could have what they wanted so desperately.

“Ehy, why don’t we talk some more when we land in Austin, uh?” she told him, sweetly; they had just resumed the tradition of closed case pizza, maybe it was time for her and Kim to act like in the past, too, and share a drink afterhours venting about their lives and just talking, or keeping in silence, as they did too sometimes. 

“Sure” he told her. She smiled and nodded, and went at the reception to ask for room service, and when she did, she turned to look at him, and saw him smiling at talking at the phone. 

She ordered- scrambled eggs and tea for Jane, a toast for herself and some coffee- and then took the walk; she choose a path not many took, as she needed the privacy for what she was about to do, and then, taking her phone in her trembling hands, she dialled Marcus’ number, the breath dying in her throat as shame and guilt filled her whole being. 

But she had to do it. It was the right thing: choosing Marcus while her heart belonged in such a total way to Jane would be a mistake, a blatant lie. Maybe, hadn’t she known that her feelings were reciprocated, she would have chosen life in DC and being his wife, but knowing what she did, she couldn’t bring herself to, even if it meant making a good man suffer. She would have never been happy, always wondering what was going on with Jane, always wondering buts and what ifs: in short, she would have belonged to Jane, and never to her husband, had she decided to go through with the wedding anyway.

He answered at the first ring, _Ehy sweetheart,_ and she took a big breath and wanted to cry as soon as she heard his voice. He was a good man, he didn’t deserve this, being put in the middle of a triangle they didn’t even know it existed, not when he had asked anybody, their co-workers, and even themselves, if he was allowed to have her for himself.She had always told him yes, to a first date with pancakes, about seeing each other exclusively, about seeing each other two nights in a row, to move in with him and even to marry him… and now she was going to say no, one time only, crushing his heart in the process. It broke her heart too, but she had to do it, for the well-being of all of them.

“Ehy, Uhm, you never texted me your flight information. Something happened with the case?” he asked her, his voice a bit unsure as he spoke. _He knows,_ she told herself. Marcus wasn’t a stupid, and that was probably why he had been that triumphant went she had told him yes: deep down, he had always knew it was a race against time, a fight between him and Jane with her heart and her hand as the final prize.

“Something happened.” She told him as she stopped, leaning against a balustrade that overlooked the beach; the waves were crashing gently on the seaside, the complete opposite of how she felt in that moment. 

“Listen, I’ve been told that Shultz had blocked all transfers, but I’m sure that now that I am leading my own office, maybe I could…”

“No” she cut him short, because it was all wrong. It was wrong leading him on, and asking him to help her out; yes, she had asked for a transfer to DC, but in the end, why had she gotten it? _Because my boyfriend is a senior agent in charge, not because I deserved it._ Marcus had simply done what Jane had too, only, Abbott had asked to stay, given her a badge because she deserved it, and not because Jane didn’t want to work with him otherwise; one of them would have given up eventually, maybe would have decided that he didn’t really want to work with Jane, and she would be back in her small office in no time. 

That was the difference between Jane and Marcus: Jane gave her things she wanted, Marcus gave her things he thought she wanted but he, instead, wished for. 

“Jane told me he is in love with me.” She said, her eyes closed because she could still barely believe it. “and I know he is telling the truth, and… and the fact is, I love him to.”

She started to say how sorry she was, that she didn’t mean to hurt him, but before she could end even half the sentence, without saying a word, Marcus hanged up on her. She ended the call on her side, sighing a little but feeling a little freer, lighter, and walked back to the hotel; the guests were already having dinner, Cho and Kim were sitting at the bar drinking and smiling, and she wondered, with a smile, if there wasn’t romance in the cards of the Korean agent too. 

She entered in the room, where Jane was sitting on his bed eating his eggs. “Sorry, but I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday at lunch.” He excused himself between mouthfuls of food. “This place is great, we should get back if they’ll allow us to. Their eggs are magnificent.”

“Uhm, I don’t know. I’m quite good with eggs myself.” She told him, stealing his own fork a some food too. But as soon as she said the words, she remembered a little something. She didn’t have a kitchen any longer. She didn’t have a place, period. 

“It’s ok, Teresa, we’ll think of something.”

“I am not living in the airstream.” She said, matter of fact, her eyes huge in fear. She and Jane may have known each other for years, but they had never properly dated. They had just kissed few times. And to go from that to sleeping together in that thing parked in the FBI parking…

“And I’d never ask you to, because I know you need something a little bit more permanent, preferably outside the FBI perimeter. I’m sure that our bosses will be happy to provide you with an hotel room for a few weeks, until you don’t find something a little more permanent. Shultz always liked you, after all. She’ll be more than happy to keep you close to her.”

Teresa made a face. “Shultz likes me only because she thinks the same thing everybody did: that I tolerated your behaviour and had a short lash on you because we’ve always been sleeping together.”

“Actually, I think she had a crush on you.” She hit him in the chest, smiling and cuddling against him, her head under his chin as she kept stealing food. 

She didn’t know what tomorrow was going to bring them, but for now, knowing that it was going to have Jane in it, and that he was going to stay and love her… was enough. 

After all, she was a romantic at heart, and had always agreed on Scarlett: tomorrow was going to be another day. Another day she was going to share with the man she loved. And who loved her back.

* * *

Bonus: Cho’s phone call

The phone rang while Grace was getting dinner ready, and she frowned when she saw the ID of the caller: Cho, as good friends as they were, wasn’t the emotional type who called often; he cared, he just didn’t like to show it with words and lengthy calls. 

Cho, calling out of the blue, could mean only troubles.

“Ehy” she breathed. 

At the other side of the line, she heard him sigh. “I owe you and Rigsby money.”

She thought about what it could be about, and when she understood, she squealed: Lisbon and Jane had finally found each other. 

 

 

 

 


End file.
